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ProMaster Master-Keying 7

An introduction for ProMaster 5 users ProMaster 5, the fifth generation master-keying software so familiar to the locksmith industry, was released 5 years ago, and throughout that period has been regularly maintained to meet the needs of the user base. The time has come to launch a significant new version with a multiplicity of new functionality. Welcome to ProMaster Master-Keying 7. The paramount question from existing users always asks of the changes, without the need to read the documentation, so here’s an overview. Overview

The first thing you will see is that ProMaster Master-Keying 7 sports a completely revamped look and feel, with careful attention given to descriptive on-screen messages, and with extensive use of high quality graphics throughout to aid productivity. Frequently, not only has a substantial serving of functionality been added to each area of ProMaster Master-Keying 7, but attention has been focused on simplifying and eliminating on-screen clutter. At the same time, we recognise that old habits die hard, so there have been no unnecessary changes to menus or the relative positions of bits and pieces that you use so frequently in your day-to-day operations.

Spell Checker

A spell checker and thesaurus, with spell checking as you type, custom dictionaries and auto correct help bring your documentation and notes to a higher standard.

Document Storage

A document storage system replaces the simple store of scanned images found in ProMaster 5, allowing you to archive images, Word and Excel documents and PDF files, with note storage and categorisation. With the document storage system tied back into your jobs and wide support for scanners, there is no reason not to keep track of all documentation about your systems. An integrated image editor allows you to tidy up, resize, crop, darken, brighten and generally make-right images as you load them or capture them from your scanner.

Windows Compatibility

Special attention has been given to ensuring compatibility with Windows Vista and the emerging Windows 2008 Server. Future proofing your investment

against the need to upgrade operating system platforms, we solve the problem before it becomes your problem.

Windows Security for Login

Corporate network administrators will be pleased to see the ability to integrate user login with Active

Directive and Windows security. Now, not only is a user login able to be validated against your Windows security for single password use, but any login restrictions and password policies on

your domain are respected by ProMaster Master-Keying 7.

Rich Text Notes

System Notes, Client Notes and Document Store notes have all been given the capacity to store and present notes using rich text (That's fonts, font sizes, formatting and colours), thus enhancing your ability to emphasise important information.

Documentation

Gone is the book style documentation, replaced by a dynamic context sensitive help system, accessible from anywhere within ProMaster Master-Keying 7. Help focuses on enhancing the on-screen information, explaining anything that requires more explanation, and providing insight to enhance your experience and productivity; it doesn't merely reiterate what you already know from looking at the program as sadly so much software documentation does these days.

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Searching

Pretty much everywhere that you search for information has been injected with more capability, from searching for systems, doors, keys, jobs, locks through to door hardware. Capabilities are enhanced by both more criteria to help in searches, and in numerous places the ability to specify how the search is performed.

Signatories

Signatory control is at the pinnacle of system security, and increased signatory capabilities in ProMaster Master-Keying 7 reflect the commitment to system control. In addition to capturing signatures from any supported scanner, the image editor, just like for documents, allows you to manipulate the signature image for optimal presentation and storage. Going one step beyond signature checking, you may now store a photo of the signatory, providing an ideal way to verify signatory likeness for walk-in orders and collections.

Drill down capabilities allow you to see the job activity for a signatory.

Signatory Security

In addition to the two tiers of signatory authentication previously offered, ProMaster Master-Keying 7 allows you to specify on individual keys the need for a greater number of signatories, but without necessarily specifying who the signatories may be.

For those systems with a complex array of signatory restrictions, the new signatory-key matrix allows you to easily see and define the keys that each signatory may order, from a granular level of a single signatory-key authorisation right through to marking out big blocks of keys and assigning them to a heap of signatories.

Clients With Multiple Systems

Maintaining signatories on multiple systems for the same client takes a leap forward in capabilities and efficiency through two wizards that take away all the manual work of maintaining them. For any system you can bring in signatories from other systems, and when you add or change a signatory you can propagate it to other systems.

Clients

Notes have been added to clients, and also the ability to see from a client all the systems for that client. Removing duplicate clients by moving systems onto a single client entry is now a simple process.

Locks

Bulk change capabilities have been added to locks, as have two wizards for copying cylinders from one lock to others and for copying counter pins from one cylinder to others. With these new features, keeping an accurate lock database becomes a very realisable goal. Just like the ability to store a photo of a signatory, the lock database has been given the ability to store and display pictures of locks. Of course the image manipulation capabilities offered for other image storage is available for locks also.

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Doors, Keys and Keying

Enabling you to record doors that do not form part of a master key system is the introduction of non-keyed doors, and on the subject of doors, changes to door locks are propagated to open jobs, so alterations to your system are immediately reflected in an order already entered. Wizards have been added for duplicating doors and whole areas to make the process of entering repetitive systems faster.

Keys have been enhanced too. A category is added to keys, a little like the area is for doors, and this category may then be used for search functions. Keys that are no longer required may be marked as disabled, prohibiting any further activity on them. For those who number their keys, but then obfuscate this information when marking the keys, the addition of an optional key stamping allows you to record and use an alternative name for each key.

Keying Matrix

The keying matrix adds a wealth of new capability. For starters you may enter the keying matrix from the doors or keys areas, and by doing this you may restrict the doors or keys that are shown in the keying matrix. Highlighting options allow you to see at a glance any keys or doors that are not used, or doors with the same stamping as the one that is selected. Powerful cascade options allow you to make hierarchal keying changes in a single operation, or if you prefer, to propagate your keying changes to doors with the same stamping, or even both at the same time. If you use stamping to represent the manner in which the keying is applied, then you will like the ability to copy stamping from a door to other doors with the same stamping. Finally, new navigation key presses allow you to quickly jump around and locate keying.

Getting Data In And Out

A parade of import and export wizards now let you import and export many types of data from and to CSV files, allowing you to massage data externally, such as in Excel, and then import the data with ease, having it rigorously checked to ensure no bad bits slip through. Specialised imports and exports have been included for Clients, Doors, Keys, Keying, Locks and Door Hardware. Now you have one more way to encourage your client to capture the door data so you can bring it into ProMaster Master-Keying 7, reducing your in-house data entry burden.

Working With Excel

For those people who use Excel for defining master-key systems there is some fantastic news. Gone is the limit of the sheet size in Excel. Systems may now span multiple Excel sheets. And of course, huge systems may be exported to Excel, dynamically creating spreadsheets with as many sheets as needed to hold your system. But wait. There's more. You can now import a ProMaster Master-Keying 7 Excel file to extend a system, thereby creating new doors, keys and keying. Now, talking to Excel is a sluggish process, so for the new big systems to come across from Excel in a timely manner, we put a huge effort into optimising the Excel communication process, resulting in a significant time saving. Finally, the whole Excel

import procedure has seen the addition of comprehensive data validation, not only ensuring the data coming in meet specifications, but giving you much greater assistance in finding the mistakes.

Exporting To HTML

You may export all or part of a system's keying to HTML so that it may be viewed in a web browser.

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Exchanging Systems Between ProMaster Master-Keying 7 Users

Just like all previous ProMaster products, there is the capability to exchange systems with other users, now bolstered to support data preview before importing a system, more import options and all this with a file size that is now 75% smaller, 75% faster to export and 65% faster to import.

Migrating From Deprecated Master-Keying Applications

For those still struggling to import data from old master-key applications, the new capabilities to read some previously unreadable data files will give you the escape you have been looking for.

Systems Analysis

A new full featured export routine for system analysis gives a huge number of choices that allow you to select and extract data for analysis and marketing purposes.

Jobs

For many, perhaps the most exciting single feature is the introduction of job snapshots. Now, when the job goes off to be manufactured, we remember forever the keying that was used for the job, and the pinning of each door on the job. So, any time you go back to the job you may see how your system looked at that point in time. Filtering of doors and keys within a job has been made more capable, and the person who closes or cancels a job is recorded to provide even better records. For ordering keys, you may now order new issues of a key and also multiple reissues of the key in a single job.

Coding

Creating a system design takes a step forward in usability with drop down selections for parameters and an integrated editor for defining and altering code progressions. Two more levels of code hierarchy (up to GGGGGMK or G5MK) are supported, making automatic coding on deeply hierarchal systems a reality. Many design modules have the capability to produce Pure Keyed To Differ systems, thus making a much greater number of individual codes possible than when a master key is used. Construction key coding (Inline, pExtra and Lockwood Twin) has some new capabilities with broader choices for selecting codes in multi-construction key systems and also automatic construction key code assignment.

Special Pinning

Many design modules now allow you to specify special pinning for individual doors, so you may predict the pinning required for a central door before the entire system is constructed. Special pinning contributes to the pinning just as the keys do, so your special pinning is an enhancement to the pinning, not making you responsible for maintaining it manually.

Coding Tree

The coding tree has had a revamp, giving snappier performance and nicer appearance, and has been enhanced to show the reason recorded for any lockout codes. When showing code quantities on the tree, colour bands and more spacious presentation improve readability.

Key Head Colours

Key head colour maintenance allows for the easy removal of those annoying misspelt colours you end up with when importing systems from other users.

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Manufacturing

Manufacturing has been given a number of new choices, and at the same time has been simplified in appearance. Also, manufacturing may be accessed directly from the list of jobs without first opening the job.

Machines

A virtually unlimited quantity of each machine is supported, with an easy machine selection as you step through the manufacturing process. As more and more computers are supplied without communication ports for using with key cutting machines, the use of USB converters results in more ports being used on the computer, so we now give the choice from an extended range of ports. Symmetric support has been added for the QuattroCode and Triax, meaning that we cut any key possible on them, and for those not using these machines where they could, we have now bundled the interface to these machines with each of the applicable design modules.

Custom Manufacturing Machines

Building on the philosophy of data in and out in any way practical, we have built in special manufacturing exports to allow you to interface to uncommon manufacturing machines and label printers without the need to request a ProMaster Master-Keying 7 customisation.

Marking

A manufacturing option has been added to allow you to mark cylinders on the Marker 2000 machine. For key marking on the Marker 2000, the need to select the correct marking model is gone, replaced by a simple yet comprehensive definition of which marking model to use for each key profile.

Paper-less Office

Answering the ever increasing call to reduce paper usage, manufacturing can now present your job pinning information on-screen, door by door, in large characters, so you can stand some distance from your screen and still see it to read the pinning information.

Labels

Support for numerous label sizes has been added for printing on label printers. You now have the option to specify the quantity of each key and door label, and also to specify the number of keys per bag, thereby allowing key label quantities to be computed for you. The manufacturing process also prints shipping labels (and return address labels) for your job.

Reporting

All reports, while getting a small revamp to address some presentation issues, retain the clarity and layout to which you have become so familiar. Of course, where possible we have enhanced the reporting criteria to give even more flexibility. The keying matrix can be printed even when no keys are entered, so you can use it as a worksheet. Initial reports have been given a pile of new options, as well as the capacity to preview them before printing. Key cutting charts provide a key profile summary - great for multi-profile systems so you know what key blanks to pick for the job. Pinning charts options now allow the pinning to be presented in the order the lock appears, as wall as the traditional method of presenting the data in the order you assemble the lock. Label printing support has been bolstered for manufacturing. A new report shows Protec lists and their usage. The phantoms reports have been expanded to include key and door descriptions. Another new report shows the quantity of each key profile manufactured by date.

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Design Module Specific Enhancements

New design modules have been added: EVVA DPE, Medeco 60 Series Biaxial, Detainer (Chubb 3G110), Champions C10-C13. A number of design modules, essentially where it would beneficial, now have the ability to restrict the profile families available to each system type.

Profiles

Inline, Small Format Interchangeable Core and Medeco 10 Series Biaxial profiles have all been enhanced to lift restrictions on profile name uniqueness, give sorting capabilities for profiles and barrels, simplification of the profile setup process, family naming for easy identification and alternate long names for barrels.

Inline: Alternate wafer naming and bottom pin naming has been added, thereby supporting lock manufacturers who use different names for their pins. Pinning output has been enhanced to support the use of master-keying and construction keying in the same chamber.

Kaba: Code progressions and coding trees have been added for Kaba Expert, Kaba Quattro and Kaba Gemini. Coding grid enhancements for Kaba Gemini provide for automatic progression, so now coding in Kaba dimple systems is as easy as any other locking system.

BiLock: A configuration allows you to define where opposing number 4 cuts are considered to produce a weak key, allowing you to determine the balance between robustness and capacity.

Backup

Like you have come to expect, the ProMaster Master-Keying 7 Backup runs seamlessly, keeping your data safe. Capabilities for backup and restore of huge databases have been enhanced, and optimisations implemented to use the fastest algorithm possible to perform your backup. New integration with Windows Scheduled Tasks makes it even easier to configure your backups.

Hardware Requirements All Computers

Operating System: Must be running Windows XP, Windows 2000 (Professional or Server), Windows Vista, Windows 2003 or Windows 2008. Your Windows installation must be running the latest service pack available from Microsoft.

Display Resolution: Minimum display resolution is 1024 x 768. A higher resolution is needed for Kaba Tree Coding (1680 x 1050 widescreen).

Colour: All computers must support high-colour graphics (sometimes called 32 bit Colour or True Colour)

CPU: Minimum CPU is Pentium 4 or equivalent.

Disk: Minimum free disk space 30MB. The machine hosting the database (the Server) must have many times more space available to allow the database to expand as you store data.

Windows 2008, 2003 and 2000 Server

Memory: Minimum 1GB RAM. 4GB RAM recommended.

Windows Vista

Memory: Minimum 1GB RAM. 4GB RAM recommended

Windows XP and Windows 2000

Memory: Minimum 512MB RAM. 1GB RAM recommended, 2GB recommended for coding.

Networking Requirements

ProMaster Master-Keying 7 requires that the TCP/IP networking protocol be installed and functioning correctly. Normally this is done as part of installing Windows.

Disk Drives

It is strongly recommended that your server uses a Hardware RAID solution (Raid 1, Raid 5, Raid 6, Raid 10 etc, but not Raid 0) to protect against database loss due to a drive failure.

UPS

It is strongly recommended that your server is protected by a good uninterrupted power supply (UPS).